


Field Trip

by Thistlerose



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mentors, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-26
Updated: 2011-07-26
Packaged: 2017-10-21 19:16:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/228693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set shortly before the training montage. After Quantico, Alex is having trouble dealing with his mutation. Erik tries to help him out. Erik is not very good at helping people.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Field Trip

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Sail_aweigh for beta reading.
> 
> Contains allusions to abuse (not sexual, not detailed) and fear of abandonment.

Alex dozes fitfully until Erik parks the car and turns off the engine. The sudden silence startles him awake and he jerks forward with a raw cry, clawing for something that isn’t there while his heart judders against his ribs. There’s a familiar warm tingle in the pit of his stomach, a sickly sweet curl at the back of his throat.

 _No,_ he thinks, swallowing hard, _I can control this. I can._

It takes him a minute or two for him to settle back in his seat and compose himself, and Erik waits patiently, his hands curled loosely in his lap, cool blue eyes focused on the dashboard.

“I’m okay,” Alex says at length, even though Erik hasn’t said a word. His voice shakes a little, so he swallows again and makes more of an effort to sound casual as he asks, “Where the hell are we?”

Erik gives an elegant shrug and Alex can’t tell if he honestly doesn’t know or if he simply doesn’t consider the information important enough to share. Or maybe it’s _too_ important to share, like whatever it is he and Charles talk about after sending Alex and the rest of the younger mutants up to bed every night. Or maybe, Alex thinks, Erik is just trying to shake him up, put him on edge. Fine. He’s used to that. He had a foster brother who loved to provoke him, and there was this one warden who couldn’t resist messing with him, like the sight of him trying to contain a plasma blast was such a gas.

He won’t let Erik bait him. He’s stronger than that.

He hears that last thought with Darwin’s voice, and his control almost slips, but he manages to hold on to it - barely. Sucking air into his lungs, Alex forces his head up and concentrates on what’s around him.

There’s _nothing_ around them. Just a field of yellowing, overgrown grass dotted here and there with dandelions, and a dilapidated old house. Alex stares at the house, trying to see if there’s anything even remotely special about it. The roof is gone; it must have caved in or been blown off in a blizzard or something. A few jagged shards of glass still gleam in the window frames. To Alex, they resemble teeth. The front door’s been ripped from its hinges; leaning forward, Alex can see it lying a few feet away in the grass, just a rotting old board covered with small gray mushrooms, that would probably crumble if he kicked it.

He’s sincerely at a loss. He can’t figure out why Erik would drive him all the way here, to this crumbling house that has to be at least a few hours from Salem; Alex doesn’t know how long he slept, but the sun had barely risen when Erik approached him in the kitchen and told him to get his jacket and come with him, and now it’s high overhead.

 _If_ Erik only brought him here to screw with him … _why_? Was he just bored? Except for the time he and Charles came to recruit him, Erik hasn’t shown Alex much interest. The only person he really spends any time with is Charles. The rest of them are just kids to him. Erik probably knows exactly how many schools and foster homes Alex got kicked out of, and exactly what he did to wind up in a maximum-security prison at the age of eighteen. In fact, Alex is _sure_ that Erik knows, and equally sure that he isn’t the least bit impressed.

“Fine,” Alex says with what he hopes Erik will read as cool detachment. “You’re not gonna tell me where we are, and I don’t care. You at least gonna tell me what we’re doing here? Is this some kind of test?”

Erik nods toward the house. “That’s for you.”

His terse explanation only confuses Alex more. “I don’t get it. You mean … I’m supposed to stay here? Instead of at the mansion?” It makes sense, he supposes. He’s dangerous. And yeah, Charles and Erik had enough pull with the FBI to get him released from prison, but then he went and destroyed that statue at Quantico. Keeping him hidden is probably smart. Still, he wishes Erik had given him time to get his things and say goodbye to everyone.

Erik turns to look at him finally, and he doesn’t need telepathic powers to convey his thought, it’s all right there in the arch of his eyebrow: _you have got to be, without question, the stupidest person in the world, Alex Summers._

Alex simmers, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Get out of the car,” Erik says, his tone silken but still commanding. He gives the air a small swirl with his index finger and Alex’s door pops open.

“You’re just gonna leave me here?”

“There’s a distinct possibility.” For a moment, his lips thin and Alex glimpses his sharp, uneven teeth. “But that isn’t the plan.” He looks away again. “It’s come to our attention--” and by _our_ , he evidently means his and Charles’s “--that you’ve been having trouble training. Something is holding you back.”

“I don’t understand,” Alex says, even though he’s starting to, finally. As soon as the words are out, he regrets them; he doesn’t want to hear what Erik is going to say next.

Erik sighs and tilts his head back. “You and Darwin were … friendly. Shaw used your power to kill him. Naturally, you’re angry. You’re grieving. No one blames you. But your emotions are getting in the way of your potential. Your efforts to hone your skills have been half-hearted, at best. So.” He indicates the house with a flick of his wrist. “Direct your anger at something nobody cares about. Let yourself feel it. Own it. Learn to use it. Anger is useful. Don’t be afraid of it.”

Alex starts to protest, “I’m not--” but that’s a lie. He closes his eyes and sees Darwin so clearly, like it just happened. The smooth brown skin turning gray, then wrinkling, shriveling as the heat inside him became too much even for his adaptive powers. That last look in his eyes, before they went up in smoke and what had once been a human body was reduced to a small pile of ash that the wind picked up and scattered.

Alex’s power had done that. Alex’s power, absorbed by Sebastian Shaw and then forced down Darwin’s throat.

He’d never seen what his power could do to a person. All the times his foster brother or that warden - or whoever else - pushed him too far, he’d unleashed what was inside him on something inanimate: a streetlamp, a garbage can, a convenience store that was closed for the night.

Never something alive, something with a face. _Never_ a person.

His hands have curled up into tight fists, something he isn’t even aware of until Erik touches his arm lightly. Alex jumps at the slight contact, and Erik says quietly, “I understand. Better than you know. That’s why I brought you here. To help you. This will help, Alex. Let go.”

“I can’t!” He hates his outburst, not least because of its physical toll: heat crackles in his stomach. He doubles over, convinced he’s going to be sick. Erik quickly withdraws his hand.

“You’re no good to anyone if you can’t control your power. You can’t control what you refuse to acknowledge--”

“I do--”

“So, show me.”

“Fuck you,” Alex mutters.

Erik is silent. Alex can feel him waiting. Outwardly, he gives the impression of infinite patience, but Alex suspects the storm is close to breaking.

“Fine,” he says, kicking the door open the rest of the way and stumbling out of the car. “I’ll fucking do it, if it makes you happy.”

He thrusts his arms wide and breathes deeply.

 _I can do this._

There’s the spark in the pit of his stomach, the familiar burn. He doesn’t need to look to know that the tips of his fingers are glowing like hot pokers. But that’s all that happens. That’s all that’s _ever_ happened since that night at Quantico, because there’s no fucking _point_ to any of this. Why even bother trying to fight an enemy who can just take your one weapon and turn it against your friends? Darwin was supposed to have been able to adapt to anything, and he only lasted a few seconds.

The first person who ever really _dug_ him.

Alex lets his hands fall to his sides. He sinks to the grass and sits there cross-legged, his head bowed, the sun baking the back of his neck. His eyes take in the specks of dry dirt on his sneakers, and the blades of grass that bend under their own weight. What he actually sees is Darwin’s face, turned toward him one last time.

He doesn’t hear Erik leave the car, doesn’t hear the grass shiver as he approaches. He only becomes aware of his proximity when his shadow falls across Alex’s back and he says, “Pathetic.”

Alex’s shoulders hitch in a half-hearted shrug.

“Get up,” says Erik.

Alex remains where he is.

“ _Up,_ I said.”

Alex’s only warning is a tug at the metal studs on the pockets of his jeans. “What the … hey!” And then he has to scramble to his feet to avoid being hoisted into the air by his own pants. Red-faced, he lunges at Erik, in his rage and humiliation forgetting that the man is not just taller and broader, but cold as ice.

Erik catches him by the shoulders, and Alex thinks, _Fuck, oh, fuck. This is it. He’s gonna kill me._ Charles can’t hear them all the way out here, can he? Does Charles even know Erik brought him here?

Alex waits for what he’s sure will be something gruesome and painful. Maybe Erik will rip all the rusted nails out of the house and hurl them at him. Or maybe he’ll just crush him slowly with the car.

Alex waits, and the seconds tick by. The bleached sky seems to spin above them, and a single bead of sweat rolls down the side of Alex’s face, but the rest of the world is perfectly still. Erik grips Alex’s shoulders and looks at him, the sharp tips of his teeth just visible between his thin lips.

The seconds slide into minutes. Alex is good at waiting; there wasn’t much else for him to do in solitary.

Finally, without loosening his hold, Erik says gruffly, “You and Darwin tried to handle Shaw on your own. That was brave, and very stupid. Leave Shaw to me. Is that clear?”

Alex tries to speak, but the words rasp in his throat. He swallows a couple of times. “Yeah,” he spits out harshly. “Yeah, I dig.”

“You will practice,” Erik continues. “You will do what Charles and I tell you to do. You will hone your skills.”

Alex drops his gaze. “Yeah.” He’ll promise just about anything at this point. He doesn’t care.

“You have a gift, you know. A very precious one. And we need you.” Erik’s tone doesn’t soften, not even slightly, but the pads of his thumbs move in slow semicircles against Alex’s clavicle.

It takes a moment or two. Erik has actually let go and turned away by the time Alex figures out that that was some sort of caress. Stunned by both the gesture and the fact that he hasn’t been gruesomely murdered – not yet, at least – Alex watches as Erik walks around the car, and folds himself into the driver’s seat.

What’s he supposed to do now? Does Erik still want him to destroy the house? Did Alex just win some sort of contest of wills with _Erik Fucking Lehnsherr?_

No way. No fucking way. Alex doesn’t win things like this. Standoffs always end with Alex getting the shit kicked out of him, or running as far away as he can to avoid destroying everything in sight. Or both. He’s never won a fucking thing in his life.

 _So, maybe things are different now._ It’s Darwin, talking in his head again. For the first time since Quantico, Alex doesn’t flinch.

Maybe Darwin’s right. Or maybe the ass kicking is still to come. Maybe Erik has a Plan B.

 _Maybe,_ Darwin agrees. _Think about it, though. He doesn’t think you’re a freak. If he didn’t mean what he said, wouldn’t he be haulin’ ass back to the mansion instead of waiting around while you make up conversations in your head?_

Alex looks at the car, then over at the house. Indecisive, he scuffs the dirt with the sole of his shoe. “I don’t even know if I _can_ do it anymore,” he says, too low for Erik to hear.

In his head, Darwin sighs and rolls his eyes. _That’s bullshit. If I were there, I’d help you, but I’m not._

“Yeah, I know.” Alex licks his lips and lowers his eyelids slightly, wishing he had a pair of shades; the sun’s too bright and his eyes are starting to sting. “I’m sorry about what happened. If I’d known, I wouldn’t’ve—”

 _None of us knew._

“I miss you. It’s stupid. I barely fucking knew you.”

The words echo in his ears, but there’s no answer from Darwin. Alex waits, but then he becomes aware of the fact that Erik is shifting restlessly in his seat, and he realizes that the guy may not be _planning_ to kill him or drive off without him, but his patience isn’t infinite.

As Alex turns back to the car, he gets a flash of memory: Darwin stroking him under his t-shirt, fingertips tickling his ribs as he asks, “When it happens, where do you feel it? Right here?” His palm skims over Alex’s belly. “Closer to here?” His thumb brushes Alex’s nipple, making him shiver.

“Here,” says Alex, covering Darwin’s hand and guiding him to the spot between his middle ribs.

In the present, Erik slams his hand against the car horn, shattering the silence and the memory.

“ _Coming,_ ” Alex shouts, and for the first time since waking up this morning, he has to crack a rueful smile because he _does_ sound like a kid. He feels better almost immediately. Not _good_ , but better. And then he actually snorts a laugh as it occurs to him that Erik Lehnsherr, of all people, was trying to do him a favor. Maybe that’s how he’ll explain this little road trip to Raven, Hank, and Sean, when he gets back to the mansion.

When he gets back _home_ , he tells himself, and can almost believe it.

He just hopes that Erik won’t try to do him any more favors, since he’s pretty fucking bad at it.

As he walks back to the car, Alex feels a curl of warmth in his belly. He inhales deeply and it flares, but only for a moment.

 _I can do this,_ he tells himself.

As if in agreement, a faint breeze brushes his shoulders, causing the short hairs at the nape of his neck to rise. Then it’s gone.

07/22/2011


End file.
